


Paying It Forward

by Lochinvar



Series: The Perfect Storm [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Boys In Love, Brotherly Affection, Canon Compliant, Caring Dean Winchester, Caring Sam Winchester, Falling In Love, Fixing the Canon, Fluff, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hungry Dean, Hungry Sam, John Winchester Referencing Ronald Reagan, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Kid Fic, M/M, No Smut, Original Character(s), Protective Dean Winchester, Slice of Life, Strangers Helping Sam and Dean, Sweet, Talismen, Wincest if you squint for a very very long time, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester, brothers in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 03:18:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9580211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lochinvar/pseuds/Lochinvar
Summary: The real reason Sam Winchester fell in love with his brother Dean





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Perfect Storm](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9552452) by [Lochinvar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lochinvar/pseuds/Lochinvar). 



Sam Winchester remembered those times when he and his brother Dean were alone while their dad was off chasing monsters, and good people made their lives a little easier. He knew Dean remembered, too. Which is one of the reasons that Dean grew up to be Dean, a decent man.

Missouri 1989

Like that episode in East St. Louis in a dirt-poor neighborhood, (six and ten), when there was a knock on the door of their room, and the motel manager, an old black man with a scar on his cheek, told Dean that some restaurant in town had a promotion going and had dropped ten sandwiches at the motel, and what the heck was he going to do with ten sandwiches, and would you, could you, take them off his hands?

No charge, sonny. Like Dean was doing him a favor.

Dean told Sammy that they were homemade sandwiches. Thick-cut bologna on store-bought bread, coated in yellow mustard and mayo, and at the bottom of the bag, a cottage cheese container filled with potato salad, like the best the brothers had ever eaten.

Wisconsin 1991

Or when they stayed in a small town near La Crosse, Wisconsin, (eight and 12), near the Mississippi River, in a ten-unit motel that ironically had a big sign in the front window of the office that said _Hunters Welcome._

There was a cross and a dime store picture of Jesus hanging in every room. John ordered the boys to salt the door and windows when the sun went down. Trust, and salt, he said, and laughed. The boys didn’t get the joke.

John had paid for a week but did not come back for ten days. The clock had run out, and Dean had told Sammy that they were going to spend the rest of the day at the public library and then hang out at the 24-hour truck stop on the highway and wait for Dad.

Sammy knew that meant finding a seldom-used booth away from the kitchen in the farthest corner of the big diner, and he would sleep with his head in Dean’s lap under Dean’s jacket. His brother would watch over him, all night.

If their father did not show up, it would be back to the library, and then Dean would sleep, curled up in a beanbag chair with a pile of car magazines in his lap, secure in the knowledge that Sammy would be safe. Sam would spend the day devouring books like he was gorging on Halloween candy.

But, just as they were packing up at checkout time, the motel owner called their room.

She was a fussy, middle-aged lady with hair hennaed a startling shade of mahogany. Wore a silver cross and sweaters with lace collars. Sounding convincingly annoyed, she said that the housekeeper, her eldest daughter, wouldn’t be able to clean their room by the end of her shift, so, by state law, they got to stay the next night for free. And the next day. And the next day, until John showed up.

New Mexico 1994

And the cop in the big chain grocery store on the way into Farmington, New Mexico. (11 and 15) Dean thought he had been careful boosting the boxes of mac and cheese and Lucky Charms and slipping them into his backpack. But he had became entranced with a selection of snack foods and didn’t sense the man in the uniform coming up behind him.

“Gonna pay for them, boy?” he asked. Dean told Sammy later that he was in the process of constructing a plausible lie when the officer held out two twenty-dollar bills.

“You dropped these,” he said. “Been watching you, boy. The kid outside your brother?”

He and Sammy, much to their mutual disgust, were wearing matching t-shirts from UNM-Albuquerque, the ill-considered gift of one of Sammy’s more observant teachers at his current school.

Dean nodded. Patiently, the cop held out the money until Dean took the bills.

“Guess you were going to get some milk and fruit, too.”

The cop escorted Dean around the store, tossing canned and fresh vegetables, a loaf of bread, and two jars of peanut butter into the shopping cart he had materialized. A gallon of milk and a bag of apples. Dean, for once, was silent.

Dean paid for the food. Two bags full. The cop grabbed one, and together they walked outside.

Sammy was lounging next to the Impala and stiffened when he saw the officer. Stood up straight, waiting for a cue from his brother.

Dean put down his bag next to the car and held the remaining money out to the cop–five bills and change.

The cop shook his head.

“You boys okay?” he asked

“Yes sir,” Dean and Sammy replied, as one. Almost saluted.

He nodded and walked away.

\-----

Sam couldn’t count the number of times he saw Dean execute his versions of Random Acts of Kindness. He secretly would pay for a stranger’s lunch and leave before they could find him and thank him, usually someone who gave off a down-on-their-luck vibe, or bring a sandwich and cup of coffee out to some homeless guy, with a plain burger for his dog.

Once, he took the snow shovel away from a kid in a jacket trying to clean the walk from the family motel after a lake-effect storm in western New York State–no hat, no gloves, no scarf–and after finishing the job in a fraction of the time it would have taken the boy, handing him back the shovel with a wink, plus his own pair of gloves.

“Cheaper than some damn yuppie health club,” Dean had muttered to Sam.

Dean bought three pairs of gloves at a time, just in case.

So, lots of good reasons to fall in love, not just green eyes and bowlegs.

**Author's Note:**

> After reading The Perfect Storm, Fenix21 said that s/he imagined that Dean was a good person because of the examples of the people who had helped him and Sam while growing up. I had written these little pieces beforehand, but took them out before I posted the work. 
> 
> So, in honor of Fenix21's psychic abilities, I am publishing them as their own, stand-alone work. You don't have to read The Perfect Storm, but these are some of the incidents that Sam was remembering as he laid next to Dean, after listening to the accidental soundtrack.
> 
> [Light edits December 2, 2017]


End file.
